Evolutionary voter sophistication and political business cycles

The concept of the sophisticated electorate is central to many contemporary political economic models. However, no existing studies have yet clarified how voters could develop a sophisticated way of evaluating economic performance. This study suggests a transitional hypothesis that removes the constraint that voters have prior knowledge about the macroeconomic environment and the true economic intent of the incumbent government. The hypothesis permits behavioral innovation from learning and predicts that the evolutionary process toward sophistication may be triggered by socially suboptimal political business cycles that reveal the self-serving characteristic of the government. The empirical analyses using recent Japanese experiences show that Japanese political support behavior shifted from naivete to sophistication in the early 1970s after political manipulation occurred in the 1969 and 1972 parliamentary elections.